Latest articles from the Innovate My School community.

All throughout February, our content will be centred around the theme of The Disruptors. These are the visionaries, stories, tactics and resources that will ensure your school stays ahead of the curve.

“Engaging students of any age is hard,” says George Hammond-Hagan, CEO of Studytracks. “From the start of anyone’s educational journey all the way to the end, there’s a battle - internal and external - for their mind’s attention.

“This is why disruptive teaching methods are important. The educators included in this month’s theme are ones who have shown that they will do things a little differently to get the result. Personally, my own path has led me to using music to power teaching and learning. Music creates an environment that we’re instinctively attuned to, as it modifies our mood, opens our mind, demands attention and transforms anywhere into a focussed sphere of influence. The brain is ‘hacked’ by music."

Don't let your teaching and learning grow stale.

PSHE (63)

Throughout the world, movements are emerging to ensure excellent practices are being embedded into whole-school approaches to teaching and learning, so that holistic, whole-child development is promoted, enabling every young person to build confidence in their abilities and flourish.

“School is a scary place when you hate yourself. I spend each day so fearful and anxious that there isn’t the faintest possibility of me concentrating in class…. so I do worse… which makes me hate myself more and fear my lessons more.” Naomi, 13
“I stopped going to swimming club because I hate how everyone looks at my fat arms and short legs. I would always feel sick before ...

I must be feeling my age to start with the cliché that “when I was a kid…”, but the modern environment for millennials has vastly evolved from a simpler time of the internet in its infancy, mobile phones the size of bricks (which appear to be back in fashion) topped with an antennae and when buying music was a ritual of sourcing enough change to walk into a store and ...

Every member of a school community matters. The physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of young children and adolescents are of paramount importance, but it is also vital that there is an ongoing focus on the welfare of all the adults making up the school community. So which values are needed for everyone in a school community to flourish and feel they are on a meaningful, fulfilling life journey?

If you’re an educator, you will know the difficulties that can come with having a child in your class who is going through, or has just gone through, a divorce. They can be moody, irrational, angry and generally act out.

I have spent most of my career encouraging communication and how it is, and always will be, the key to success. To many people this is obvious, though as adults we tend to forget that teenagers prefer to be non-committal and secretive, if not a little uncooperative.

Three years ago I was listening to the BBC Radio 4 Education Debates. The discussion focused on what we should teach our children in school. It included a clip from an enthusiastic boy who talked about the values he had been learning: respect, honesty and determination. A member of the expert panel was dismissive, claiming a school curriculum should be about skills and knowledge, not “wishy-washy” values. Yet this was 2012: the ...

Teaching young people about risk taking and their wellbeing is just as critical as studying. How can we encourage pupils and students to become more aware of the risks they are likely to face as part of growing up and help them to make positive decisions?

As I get older – I’m 47, and feeling every minute of it – I definitely have a sense that now is the time to ‘do it’, whatever that ‘it’ is. Having suffered a stroke not long ago helps focus the mind in that regard, as does having kids. And so I’m delighted that something came my way at work (I’m an enrichment and collaboration coordinator for an educational consortium ...